Microsoft offering HD-DVD drive, $199

[Soulburner]

Saw this in my Gameinformer. They are offering the HD-DVD drive add-on to the XBox 360 for $199. This will be used for movies only. Games will still only be made in DVD format. Microsoft says they have no plans to make HD-DVD games. This drive also does not have an HDMI output

So what does $399+$199=? About the price you'd have for the Premium PS3 with built-in Blu-Ray player and HDMI out...

Thoughts? Is anyone planning on buying one?

[vudoodoodoo]

I heard about this and laughed. People need to stop complaining about PS3 price. Premium PS3 is comparable to an XBOX360 w/ HD DVD drive.
IMO, it's really dumb to NOT offer games on their HD DVD format.

[Kingcarcas]

1. No HDTV
2. Microsoft gave people a choice and i appreciate that so i'm buying a 360 when it hits $300
3. Hd-DVD means nothing to me, but i do hope it wins the format war.

[Lt_JWS]

Im getting one tomorrow(if it ships) , beats the heck out of buying a $500 stand alone player..... Also Gears of War comes out tomorrow WOOOOOOOOT, also i could careless about HD-DVD games... i dont mind getting off my arse and changing a DVD ever so often.

[squilliam]

1) An HD-DVD game would load slowly. Blue-Ray games do load slowly without hard drive help. The formats just came out and they can't be read as fast as a DVD can be.

2)Each PS3 game takes up 4.5GB of space on its hard drive to help free up space. If you get the cheap PS3 that is 3 to 4 games.

3) Most games use only 4GB of space on the disc. Sure the blue-ray has more space... but they fill it with cinematics... that is when you cross the line from game to movie. I personally would like them to stay a bit seperate.

4) As mentioned earlier, you are not having the HD stuff shoved down your throat. You have a choice with the X-box. $200 is nothing for a new format drive. Blue-ray drives for the PC are $600 and up.

5)Blue-Ray DVDs are $35-40 brand-new. HD-DVDs are $20 brand-new.


I Personally will support M-soft on this one. They have taken the smart and safe route. I plan on too purchasing one (X360) as soon as the premium goes for $300.

P.S. -1080p (or 1080i not exactly sure) format connection is in the works and they plan on making it a reality for the 360.

[Soulburner]

3) Most games use only 4GB of space on the disc. Sure the blue-ray has more space... but they fill it with cinematics... that is when you cross the line from game to movie. I personally would like them to stay a bit seperate.

A high end PS2 game will take up most of a DVD yes, but a PS3 game will push the limits beyond what a DVD is capable of. Sony wanted to remove any possibility of holding developers back by giving them a near unlimited amount of room to grow. Also keep in mind HD content takes up a lot more space than we used to use, so the 50gb Blu-Ray discs let you pack a lot more content on than a 30gb HD-DVD format disc.

4) As mentioned earlier, you are not having the HD stuff shoved down your throat. You have a choice with the X-box. $200 is nothing for a new format drive. Blue-ray drives for the PC are $600 and up.

That is beside the point, because it is a part of the PS3. This HD-DVD drive brings the 360 up to the same price range. Nothing extra is needed for the PS3 which keeps its price where it is.

P.S. -1080p (or 1080i not exactly sure) format connection is in the works and they plan on making it a reality for the 360.

How are they going to do that?

[Lt_JWS]

1080p is already out with the latest update to the xbox360, all you need is a 1080p HDTV

[yaddam205]

And thats why ill wait for the redesign with 60GB HDD, 65NM and HD DVD built in.

Plus hopefully wont look as bad as it does now, in comparison with Wii and Ps3.

[Soulburner]

1080p is already out with the latest update to the xbox360, all you need is a 1080p HDTV

So all it takes is a software update? The hardware was already capable?

Does Microsoft have plans to make games to use 1080p or can any game use that output?

[Lt_JWS]

Yup it supports it with a simple software update ,All games can be upconverted to 1080p i believe, im not 100% sure on that.

[Starscream]

hmm MS claims there wont be games requiring the HD-DVD drive.
i somehow got the feeling that in 2007 wel see games requiring that HD-DVD drive.

Cause at launch MS claimed there wont be games requiring a HD and u can play all games on the core version. And wow there are games requiring a HD already.

and about Blu-ray vs HD-DVD media.
a 15Gb disc costs 9 euro here and a 25Gb BR disc also costs me some 9 euro :/.
Movie prices here dont differ much from eachother the one thing that kills it at both sides is the prices for internal writers.

[BobyTT]

There we go , i just got my HD-DVD player. its coming with KingKong movie , and 3 other HD-DVD are on their way from Netflix..


the quality is a,mazing , the update of Xbox it couldn't be easier If you like to watch movies that picture and sound is perfect its pretty good choice , and since i had already 360 i doesn't seen reason to buy PS3



http://miaworld.net/HD/

[Metroid]

There we go , i just got my HD-DVD player. its coming with KingKong movie , and 3 other HD-DVD are on their way from Netflix..


the quality is a,mazing , the update of Xbox it couldn't be easier If you like to watch movies that picture and sound is perfect its pretty good choice , and since i had already 360 i doesn't seen reason to buy PS3

For me the external Hd from Microsoft is too expensive and it will not use it for games. What a shame.

I would rather buy a Playstation 3 than X-Box 360 + HD.

That is me.

It looks very nice.

Thanks for the pictures.

[BobyTT]

For me the external Hd from Microsoft is too expensive and it will not use it for games. What a shame.

I would rather buy a Playstation 3 than X-Box 360 + HD.

That is me.

It looks very nice.

Thanks for the pictures.

May be you are right but , i bought this like almost a year ago. and i dont have patience to wait another year to buy PS3... And anyway there is not that many exclusive games for PS3. They pretty much ed up themselves.....

[squilliam]

I hope you'll find this useful.
http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2006/...ure_Gam/1.html
It basically is showing that
bigger disc spaces are no
longer neccessary.

Thus meaning that Next-Gen
discs are not a neccessary
componentfor Next-Gen games.

I have some actual examples from a recent game, Roboblitz. In this game, we replaced about 95% of the textures. The game has 6 levels and for each level the developers would use 80MB of compressed textures. So, let's do the numbers, a total of 6x80=480MB. Using our tools we replaced the 480MB with about 3MB of procedural data, a pretty spectacular decrease in game size.

The game now fits within 50MB and can be downloaded through Xbox Live. Without our technology this game would weigh approx 50MB-3MB+480MB=527MB. So the gain, for Roboblitz, we saved 90% of the entire game size. That is a massive gain for the developers which allows them to reach the Live audience - something they couldn't otherwise have done.

[Soulburner]

With a cost to CPU crunching time...do you want size or performance?

And tell me how you are going to shrink HD video content? Doesn't work exactly the same as the rest of the game.

[squilliam]

There in lies the question: are you buying the
media to watch a movie or are you buying it to
play a game? If you want to watch a movie in
HD, then buy a HD player, if not, then why worry?

[Soulburner]

That's the thing, there is no need to buy an external player with these newer systems including them.

It is an interesting way of shrinking game size, but I wonder what its affects on performance are. I am sure there are limitations to how much they can get away with, and whether or not a big studio would use it on their games. We will have to wait and see.

[squilliam]

A REALLY nice new bonus is that the HD-DVD add on
for the 360 is now able to hook up to computers with
a couple of new drivers. A $200 HD-DVD player is
unheard of for a PC. Most of the people on here seem
to lean a little on the PC side

[BobyTT]

A REALLY nice new bonus is that the HD-DVD add on
for the 360 is now able to hook up to computers with
a couple of new drivers. A $200 HD-DVD player is
unheard of for a PC. Most of the people on here seem
to lean a little on the PC side

Where is the driver?

I found all the info.

[squilliam]

Where is the driver?

I found all the info.

Sorry for the long wait. I had
forgotten where I found this stuff at.

http://uneasysilence.com/archive/2006/11/8303/

[Peeps42]

im going to buy a hd dvd drive when the price drops

[BobyTT]

im going to buy a hd dvd drive when the price drops

I dont think you are going to wait more than 9-10 months

[[cTx]Philosophy]

I got the kids a 360 and the graphics are decent enough without HD for now, although I dont have the HD cables I dont really think the HD-DVD player will be in my buy list..

[Soulburner]

I got the kids a 360 and the graphics are decent enough without HD for now, although I dont have the HD cables I dont really think the HD-DVD player will be in my buy list..

Well unless you plan on watching HD-DVD movies then don't worry about it, it won't do anything for games. And you'll need a nice TV too